We spent the rest of the day together after taking Bertha’s car back. He used the rainwater and shared the towel with me in what could have been one of those peculiarly public moments of intimacy. With Luis it was merely the usual necessity of getting rid of salt before going in. He picked up a neatly rolled bundle of clothes, and I pointed him toward the downstairs bath. Emmett, thank God, had gone out somewhere.
When I introduced Luis to Bertha she immediately said, “I know your father,” she said. “Alberto … Alberto Platon. We see him out at the Balinese Room often.”
“Yes. He likes going out there.”
He said nothing more just then, but as I ran upstairs to change, I could hear their voices.
We ate lunch together at one of the piers near the shell shop. I looked for the Jamaican with his drum. He wasn’t in sight. Where did he go when he wasn’t on the seawall?
“He has a place,” Luis said. “Three blocks or so back there’s a house his relatives live in, I think.”
“Is that a section for Negroes?”
“No, not in this older part of town. They’re all scattered in with everybody.”
I was so astonished I blurted, “That would never happen in the South.”
“Really? It’s been going on here a long time. Maybe because it’s an island.”
He folded himself back into his old MG. It was his mother’s car she’d used only in town. She was dead, had been for three years. “Cancer,” he said, just the one word, then added, “Of course she was too young. Anyone’s too young to die of that.”
‘I’m sorry. It must have been … must be a terrible loss.”
I wanted to comfort him and didn’t know how. Why were there so few words to do this, especially when you haven’t known the person who died and barely knew the person you were trying to sympathize with?
I brushed away the sweat running down the sides of my face. It was hot in the car on top of the seawall.
“I mean…you get over the worst but you do remember.”
“Yes.” He looked out toward the water glittering in the noon heat.
“It must be hard to be here, to be in Galveston without her.”
He still wouldn’t look at me.
“Sometimes it is.” His voice was so low I could barely hear him.
He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm and began pulling out in the traffic along the seawall. Turning away from me, he scanned the street behind us.
Had I said too much? He’d trusted me enough to let me know about his mother. Could I know him better now?
He started driving toward the east end of the beach where we were going to catch the state ferry to Bolivar. We would ride over and back because, he insisted, we needed to get off the island for a while.
“Why? You leave Galveston, drive to Houston sometimes, don’t you?”
“Sure. Over the causeway. I’d rather leave in a boat. What’s the use of an island if you don’t use the sea around it?”
Though I had crossed and re-crossed parts of the U.S., I’d never thought of an island that way. For me an island was a place removed, a place one could flee to, not a point of connection. I’d never been anywhere by sea. We climbed to the second level passenger deck above the cars. The ferry, an old one smelling of grease and gasoline fumes, rocked slowly across the bay accompanied by rattling ropes and metal pulls clanking against poles. Franklin gulls followed shrieking above us. They dipped to the water, skimmed the surface, then rose again filling the air with their greedy cries. Below the ferry’s engine thumped like an overloaded old washing machine’s. The water grew choppy, full of little upstart waves that made the ferry shudder as it moved in a long curving passage to the opposite shore.
Luis, in a soft white shirt and a pair of old jeans he’d pulled on at the house, leaned against the rail in front of me. The white shirt accentuated his darkness, his distance. At times anyone, even those who were close to me, seemed unknown. I’d caught Tony Gregory like that, looking away, cut off from everyone, a person totally apart, so separate he couldn’t be reached. My father, Kenyon, Emmett, any man would, for minutes, become completely alone, completely themselves. So could any woman; men only seemed further away. Watching others, I would notice my own loneness. It came to me then that we all lived in small spaces, little territories which others occasionally crossed.
A sudden stiff wind puffed the back of Luis’s shirt. He nodded toward a freighter weighted to the halfway mark on its waterline. From where we were, it was huge, its formidable black hull pointed to the open sea.
“They always look mysterious, don’t they?” he said. “Probably carrying something like sulfur mined over in New Gulf. It’s only going about the business of the world as usual.”
The crossing from Galveston to an unknown coast made me long for a real ship, a real sea. These longings overtook me more and more lately. The most eventful trips I’d made had all been from one house to another, from one set of people to another set that had to be adjusted to. Even my trips to and from universities were necessary ones as were the family vacations I’d finally escaped and the obligatory trips back to Nashville. My mother and father returned infrequently now. Kenyon never wanted to go back, so I had been sent instead. Mother had traveled for pleasure, had taken off to unknown places, before the war. She and Aunt Bertha had been to Cuba and to England. My father poked around Europe for a year right after he finished college. Like them I wanted to know more of the world.
At the Bolivar landing we waited listening to motors turning over and watching cars plunging toward shore like awkward turtles. Children walked on a fragile looking pier near the landing, a dog lingered behind them to roll in the sand. At the end of the pier a group of men fished silently. One of them pushed his hat back on his head and studied us for a moment before turning his eyes back to his pole again. The rest, sitting two or three together, or standing almost motionless their heads bent toward the water or staring out to sea, made a jagged frieze against the sky.
After the last car was off and just before the others started on, there was a moment of calm broken only by gulls’ screams and waves slapping. Bright sun fell on the gray beach, on the asphalt road leading past a grove of trees, the landing, the lighthouse at the other end of the bay. The two of us, dangling over the water, were suspended in light. I waited, happily dazed by heat and sun, content to be taken back to Galveston.
Emmett was away when I got home late that afternoon. Bertha didn’t know where he’d gone. He’d borrowed her car and taken off.
“Maybe he went looking for you. He was upset about you being out with Luis. I wish youall would quit wandering off. I can’t seem to catch the two of you together, and I want to introduce you to some young people.”
“Why should Emmett care about me going out with Luis?” A little tired, wanting a shower and fresh clothes, I edged away from her toward the stairs.
“He said … He said he didn’t like it because Luis is Mexican.”
I turned to face her. “Half Mexican. What difference does it make anyway?”
“None,” said Bertha. “That’s what Mowrey tried to tell him. We’ve always had a duke’s mixture here on the island … Jews, Mexicans, Irish, Scotch, Negroes, Italians, Germans.”
I waited wondering how many other nationalities she’d name.
She was sitting at the kitchen table where she’d evidently just finished looking at part of the newspaper folded in her lap. Now she picked it up and began fanning herself.
“It doesn’t matter to us, Celia, not to me, not to your Uncle Mowrey. But it does to Emmett.”
“It’s none of his business.” I was so angry I could hardly speak. “What if I tried…. What if I told Emmett he shouldn’t… he shouldn’t date certain girls?”
Bertha’s eyes widened. She slid her glasses over her nose and laid them carelessly, lens down, on the table.
“Earlene does that, doesn’t she?” She smiled as if the fight between Emmett and his mother w
asn’t especially important. “I guess,” she added, “he thinks he should look after you.”
“Well he can think all he wants!” I turned my back on her knowing look. Lately I’d begun to notice there was, among the Chandler women, an unspoken custom; they told each other whatever their men thought, gave sharp attention to attitudes and ideas. And within the family, the men’s opinions were important. Were they more important than the women’s? I wasn’t sure. Often everyone knew they were absolutely contrary. Aunt Earlene didn’t care about horses—she’d seldom been on one—while Uncle Estes knew their bloodlines back sometimes for three generations. Mowrey and Bertha, though both Catholic, went to different masses and regularly canceled each other’s votes, or so Bertha said. There was no way of knowing about that. My father hunted and fished the year round while Mother, though she cooked whatever he shot or hooked, did not get near guns or tackle.
Leaving Bertha in the kitchen, I walked up the stairs sliding one hand along the banister’s dark wood as I went. One day, if Bertha had her way, there would be no stairway. She and Mowrey were getting too old to climb it, so the stairs would come down, and they would come down with them to live on the first floor after the guest bath had been remodeled and a shower added. The top floor would become an apartment with its own exterior entrance where renters would live or a visiting family might stay. The staircase that Mowrey’s father had built, one put together with pegs, would go to Emmett for his own home—if he ever had one. Old people were always making plans like that. Grandmother Henderson wanted me have her silver goblets and her rings. A maiden aunt had already asked me if I’d take her bed. There was plenty of “This will be yours someday” kind of talk. It made me tired. I didn’t want anything of anybody’s no matter how badly they needed to leave their things to someone. I could just see myself sitting in my aunt’s spool bed with a bunch of silver goblets in my lap and all of Grandmother Henderson’s rings on my fingers. Why did one generation have to weigh the next one down so?
In the bedroom the ceiling fan was whining a lonesome song to itself. Shutters were still closed. The room was dark. One of Emmett’s sheets trailed across the floor. I picked it up and began making his bed, as I usually did, not for him, I told myself, for Aunt Bertha who already had enough to do. When the sheet was securely tucked in, I threw the shutters open. All up and down the street I could glimpse people sitting on front porches waiting for dusk and supper. I sat down on the side of my bed and began unbuttoning my shirt wondering why I’d come to Galveston. Bertha had accused me—without saying so exactly—of ignoring Emmett. And she was right. We were still kin, of course. Ever since we moved to Texas the Chandlers had claimed us. We went to see each other, spent holidays together, called each other “Cousin,” “Aunt,” “Uncle,” “Grandmother.” And here was Emmett who refused to act kin to me while to Bertha he was only acting like a protective cousin. No shame was involved as far as he thought about his reactions, which wasn’t far. And here I was within reaching distance every night, refusing to have anything to do with him even in the daytime. I didn’t want Emmett. Nothing but shame was involved for me.
Supposedly I was protected by those open doors, by Aunt Bertha and Uncle Mowrey sleeping ten or twelve feet away. I didn’t feel protected. Now Bertha, in her strange innocence, had let me know Emmett was jealous of Luis. What a hopeless muddle! If I told her Emmett tried to kiss me when he was drunk, I’d probably be blamed for attracting him.
Late that night the screech of tires against the front curb woke me. Emmett was trying to park Bertha’s big Chrysler in front of the corner streetlight where no one was supposed to park. Kneeling at the window at the head of the bed, I tried to see him. He must have taken a long slide across the front seat to open the door. I watched him fall with one hand out-stretched to the sidewalk. Behind him the door swayed open leaving the inside light glowing. The back of his shirt was split. He looked like he’d been rolling in dirt. Holding onto the slender limb of the nearest oleander, he struggled to a sitting position. I waited expecting to hear him slam the door. He was within easy reach of it, but the door no longer existed for Emmett. His head fell forward on one arm.
I got out of bed, and without stopping to put on a robe, ran downstairs. Better to leave the porch light off, I thought, and kept going down the porch steps. Bits of oyster shell on the sidewalk scratched my feet. Afraid we’d be seen, I pushed the car door too, then gave it a final quiet shove. Bending down to Emmett, I smelled horses, whisky, and dust.
“Come inside.”
“Can’t.”
“You got this far. Come on.”
He lifted his face and I caught sight of a scratch on his cheek.
“You hurt?’
“No. … Yes.” He touched his cheek with one dirty finger as if he was making sure the scratch was still there.
“Where else?”
“All over.”
I knelt beside him. “Emmett, where have you been?”
“Riding the bucking broncos.” He tried to grin and touched his cheek again.
“Rodeoing?”
“Yeah. I got thrown.”
“Where was the rodeo?”
“Texas City … somewhere outside Texas City.”
“What are you going to do next?”
He raised his hand again as if to touch his cheek. Instead he traced the curve of my chin with the tips of his fingers. “I don’t know for sure.”
“Well, come on. We’ve got to get you in. I’ll help. Come on now before you wake up everybody.”
He seemed more tired than drunk, but I couldn’t be sure. I put one of his arms around my shoulders, slowly got him to his feet, and began directing him carefully toward the front walk. Before I could lead him there, he veered away to the little three-foot high front fence and tried to climb over it. His boot caught on the pointed arrow top of the iron railing leaving him wavering on one foot. I bet it wasn’t the first time somebody had tried to step over that little fence.
With some effort I managed to pull him loose. “Where are you going? Are you crazy? Come on, Emmett, this way.” I tugged at him, but he was too heavy.
His boot heels ground in the crushed shell as he pivoted around and stood in front of me. “Caught you.”
“No!”
He held me against him with both arms. His belt buckle scraped against my stomach. Laughing, he bent his head down.
“No!” I kicked his legs and was amazed at his sudden strength. “Let go of me. I don’t want you. I don’t want anything to do with you. You tear up everything you put your hands on, even yourself.” The crushed shell was cold and prickly underfoot, and I began to feel cold even while Emmett held onto me. He seemed to be studying me while trying to understand but at the same time was unwilling to believe what I’d told him.
“Listen,” I tried again. “I don’t belong to you, and I don’t want to belong to you.”
He let go of me but kept one hand on my shoulder. “You don’t know what you want, Celia.” His mood shifted to drunken seriousness.
“Well who does? Leave me alone now.”
“All right.” He sat down on the porch steps.
I got inside, clicked the porch light on, then started upstairs so fast I almost collided with Aunt Bertha waddling quietly down.
“What is it this time?” She asked slowly as if she were talking in her sleep.
“Whisky … rodeos and whisky. Saddle broncs,” I added, determined to tell her everything this time. I paused for breath.
“My Lord!’ Aunt Bertha started to cross herself, dropped her hand, and settled in a heap three steps from the bottom directly behind Emmett on the porch steps outside. I climbed the stairs past her and glanced back at both of them sitting, Bertha in a faded blue cotton robe staring down at Emmett’s torn shirt and his head outlined by the bright yellow porch light where the moths had already begun flying in their futile circles.
The next morning the house was extra quiet. I didn’t know how Emmett got upstair
s. Maybe Bertha helped him. More than likely he wasn’t really as helpless as he’d acted. When I went down for breakfast, he was apparently still in a sodden sleep, a pillow pulled over his head which he’d turned to the opposite wall.
Bertha made no comment about the night. Uncle Mowrey winked at me as if to say he knew something was going on and we should both keep quiet. I took the back section of the paper to read. When the mail came, there were two letters for me from Colorado. I opened Tony’s first. He spent most of a page complaining about a course, one called Civil Procedure, which he’d decided to take during the summer session since this would bore him only six weeks rather than thirteen.
“It’s worse than trusts, which was made up of dusty volumes and ancient rules. Procedure is just more rules and how and when you do everything. It’s nothing but a set of obstacles. Right now we’re studying discovery—interrogations, depositions, stipulations, requests for admission. Sounds like a long, stupid curse, doesn’t it? For every rule there’s an exception, so all this time you’re locked in a maze with this guy droning on and wiping his glasses with his handkerchief all the time. You get so sleepy you wish he’d drop his glasses.”
Uncertain Ground Page 6